Curtain Calls
by JC Lane
Summary: This is the story of Gamma Squad and their tragic tale of loss,love and betrayal.Summary sucks so just read and enjoy.R&R if you wish to.NOTE ADDED 6-11-09 11-6-09 for you Americans and such :CHAPTER 3 IS COMING SHORTLY
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: Gamma Squad and its members belong to me, the locations, weapon names and other characters belong to Epic.**

Chapter 1: Under New Management

Gamma Squad was full of misfits: the leader, Sergeant Abel Crowshaw, had had his index finger on his right hand blown off by a lone Locust sniper. Kelly Evelyn was the only female COG soldier to survive the Pendulum Wars, so she was evidently skilled. Blake 'False Eye' Winters' nickname spoke for itself,his left eye had been tugged out in an underground fight club brawl by a Stranded bum. Lastly, there was Clay Carmine, the biggest misfit of the bunch. He was completely inexperienced on the battlefield, seemed to be a magnet for bullets and was afraid of his own shadow. The other three in Gamma Squad wonder how he managed to get signed up.

"Take the shot, Blake," ordered Abel through the headpiece. "I don't fancy losing another finger on the account of a sniper. I'd rather you do the job. At least you'll be in range for me to kick your ass."

The bullet flew across to the smashed window in the building opposite Gamma Squad. A huge grunt of pain meant that the Locust sniper had been either badly wounded or killed. Blake remained prone on the roof of the abandoned police station whilst Abel proceeded down the street below.

"Evelyn, status report!" Abel shouted through the headpiece.

"Got a lot of dead grubs here, sir," Kelly replied. "I think it's all clear. Carmine, you idiot, get down! Scratch that, sir. We're under heavy fire again."

Meanwhile, a couple of blocks away, a shoot-out was commencing between a dozen Locust troops and two lone COG soldiers. Kelly and Clay may have been giving the enemy quite a bit of resistance, but their numbers were increasing, and Abel was too far away to provide support.

"Blake is going to have reach you via the rooftops," Abel said. "Rendezvous back inside the station. Sergeant Crowshaw out!"

Blake began to move slowly across very thin wooden planks to the other buildings. If he rushed, he could potentially fall to his doom, but time was of the essence. Abel decided to check out the building where the sniper had been shot. He equipped his snub pistol and checked his ammo, full clip. Approaching the stairs with caution, he took thudding steps up each one. _Bad move. _There were still Drones in the building and they had heard him coming. About 70 rounds of Hammerburst shells came flying Abel's way and he was forced to jump down the flight of stairs. _Another bad move. _Two drones chased after him, and soon enough, he saw a massive boot gliding above his face whilst he was flat on his back. Was this the end for Sergeant Abel Crowshaw?

"Sir, are you there?" a concerned Kelly asked under overwhelming gunfire. "Sir? Sir! ABEL!" she screamed when she heard a squelching noise followed by horrible laughs from Drones. "Oh my god! Carmine, Abel's dead. Those bastards got him. I....I need to tell Blake." She changed her frequency and said in a shaky voice "Blake, it's Evelyn. Abel has been killed."

"Kelly, get a hold of yourself," Blake pleaded in an effort to calm her down. "He may still be alive, but for now I'm taking over the squad. Try to hold out. I'll be there soon."

Blake's message didn't seem to stop Kelly's stress levels. She began to sob on Clay's shoulder. He hugged her in comfort, but their cease fire allowed a Drone to sneak up on them. Clay couldn't move in time to down him, so it looked like a bleak situation, but luckily Blake had moved into a good sniping position and blew the Drone's head off. Clay and Kelly finally got their bearings and began retaliating.

"THIS IS FOR SARGE!" Clay shouted over the immense sound of his Lancer shots.

A couple of minutes later, the three of them piled the Locust corpses together and burnt them with a Scorcher. Blake thought it was justifiable after they had killed his commanding officer. Clay suggested that they visit the place where Abel was killed, but they didn't locate his body or any others in the vicinity.

"He is dead, isn't he?" Blake questioned. "You heard them shoot him."

"No...not exactly," Kelly replied nervously. "There was just a loud thud and mocking laughter from the Drones."

"He may still be alive, then?"

"Probably not. It sounded like a curb stomp. He wouldn't have survived that."

"Well then, we're done here. I'm calling for evac."


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2: Abel Crowshaw-M.I.A

Colonel Utah was waiting in his quarters for Sergeant Abel. When Blake entered the room, his chair was turned around so he did not see who it was and naturally thought it was Abel.

"How did the mission go, Crowshaw?" he asked.

"It's not Crowshaw, it's Winters," Blake replied. "Abel is M.I.A. Presumed dead actually."

"M.I.A?"

"Well Private Evelyn heard him being stamped on by Drones. So when we went to check his corpse, it wasn't there, nothing was. Not even a blood trail or Locust."

Clay walked in on the meeting as the two were speaking and when he noticed them, he felt dire embarrassment.

"Um, Blake, we need you for a sec," Clay uttered.

Blake looked at the Colonel for permission and he nodded as a reply. Clay gave a salute to Colonel Utah. He didn't seem to notice his salute and swung his chair around to the wall where all his military certificates were.

Kelly was sitting with a COG soldier that Blake did not recognize. His first thoughts were not good ones.

"Who is this?" he inquired.

"Abel's replacement," Clay assured him. "Corporal Joshua Thorn."

"We don't need a replacement for someone who's not dead," Blake said through gritted teeth.

"Blake, I know you miss him too," Kelly murmured, "but we need to move on with our lives. We're probably never gonna see him again."

"He's not dead. There was no clear blood trail on the floor. He probably fought the Locust off somewhere else and is on his way back to base right now."

Clay, Kelly and Joshua were certainly aware that Blake's friendship with Abel was clouding his judgement on the situation. Clay knew most of all that his former Sergeant was either dead or close to it. Luckily, he signed up for Gamma Squad just 5 days before their assignment, so he never really got attached to any of the members, except for Kelly, who he admired deep down inside. The problem for him was, Kelly and Abel were in love when he joined.

_2 weeks later_

Abel woke in a puddle of sweat. After all, he had been put through his paces in the past couple of weeks. The Locust prisoner camp was an uncomfortable place to work in. Throughout the first week, over 50 prisoners had been killed. The second was no better however, with the death toll reaching 200. Abel was a strong fighter though. He was not going to give in to suicide or do an extreme thing and get shot.

Abel reached the mining site with his shovel in hand. Some of the others were already hard at work, even at 5:18am. They all had the face of despair expression on today. This meant more had been executed overnight. Abel went to check to see if his friend, Goina, was still surviving.

"Hey, Goina," Abel said when he met him.

"You're still alive, Abel?" Goina replied in surprise.

"Why are you saying that?"

"I overheard the Locust reporting that someone in Hut 46 had been shot. There's only 3 prisoners in there, you, Fredrick and Bonnie. I saw Bonnie earlier so I knew it was either you or Fred."

"Shit, this never ends. I've been here 2 weeks and already I'm being torn apart inside. How are you still able to cope after being here for over 5 months?"

Abel knew that no response meant it was time for him to shut up and start digging. He hated to admit it, but the Locust weren't as demonic as he had previously thought. Usually, Locust would execute people without remorse, but now they were letting them live in moderate conditions. It was safer in these camps than on the surface.

*

"I had that nightmare again," Kelly told Blake the following morning. "Abel was being tortured by those bastards."

She broke into tears and found comfort on Blake's shoulder. He wrapped his arms around her in acknowledgement of her pain.

"We all miss him," he said in a grizzled tone. "Carmine's not fighting as well as he should be. Mind you, he was quite useless to begin with."

Kelly gave a little chuckle behind all the sniffs and sobs. Clay came over to their position when he heard his name, but Blake waved him away back to where he was meant to be standing guard. Corporal Thorn wanted so see what all the commotion was about, so he left his post on a rooftop and used an access ladder to rejoin his squad.

"What's wrong with her?" Thorn implied when he saw Kelly in tears.

"Leave it out, corporal," warned Blake.

"I was just asking a question, sheesh."

Blake was about to reply with what seemed to be a threat, but a loud explosion caught the team off guard and they all readied their weapons. Suddenly, half a dozen Stranded bodies crashed through a wall along with loads of debris. Clay was standing nearest to the explosion, so he was knocked back a little too. Blake could tell the Stranded guys were still alive by their coughing and wheezing, probably caused by inhaling smoke from the debris.

"What the hell just happened?!" Thorn shouted to the Stranded.

"We...we tried to defuse a Locust bomb," one of them replied.

"Well that was intelligent," Thorn sneered.

"Hey, Lennon said he could do it," the same guy said.

The six Stranded all got to their feet where they were met by a seemingly pissed off Blake.

"Who are you guys?" he questioned to one of them.

"I'm Jack," the Stranded instantly replied. "These are my friends, Lennon, Fred, Bobbie, Cameron and Jeremy."

"And what were you doing with a Locust bomb?"

"We didn't steal it if that's what you were inclining," the one called Lennon aptly said.

Their meeting was abruptly cut short when a sniper shot had gone off nearby and nearly took Jack's head off. Gamma Squad quickly took cover but the Stranded were panicking and didn't know where to run to. It wasn't long before they were caught in the battle.

Meanwhile, in the building that Gamma Squad was holed up in, Blake was trying to support the Stranded by killing the Locust troops below. However, there was a lot to handle; seven Drones, three Grenadiers, two Boomers and a sniper somewhere in another building that he was yet to spot.

"Clay, I need you to do something for me," Blake whispered to his cohort who was crouched next to him.

"What is it, Sarge?" Clay responded enthusiastically.

"Lure the Locust down the street and get those Stranded boys outta dodge. When your at a safe distance, let me know and I'll start dropping these bastards one by one."

"Er, that's a lot to deal with, Sarge. Isn't there a safer way?"

"No, but you can take Corporal Thorn to provide covering fire. Now move out, soldier!"

Clay and Thorn ploughed downstairs and opened the front door of the three story diner they were hiding in. They both spotted the Stranded guys in some heavy doings-they already had pistols and were fighting back. This would make the job a hell of a lot easier.

On the roof, Blake and Kelly were exchanging concerned looks when they heard cries of pain from the street below, as they knew it could be Clay. However, they did not seem to care about Thorn. He had been a pain in the ass since he first joined them a couple of weeks ago. When the squad found a human corpse just a few days beforehand, Thorn found it appropriate to utter things such as "sucks to be him" and "I wonder if he went down without a fight." Blake was mostly annoyed when he had found out that Thorn had taken the COG tags and carved out the name written on it (PRIVATE MALCOLM CORK) and replaced them with rude words.

The two soldiers on the street kept the Locust platoon at bay until they reached the Stranded and began retreating with the spunky civilians. However, resistance was getting weak. The Boomers were firing their Boomshots left, right and centre and they had managed to cause a nearby pillar to crash and block the path back to Blake and Kelly.

"Damn it," Carmine muttered, radioing his leader.

The connection was weak which meant that Blake had left the roof and gone back inside the building, but why? Carmine racked his brain trying to figure out an answer, but there was no logical explanation for why he left his post. Carmine looked upon the roof and saw his sergeant locked in a heavy chainsaw duel with a Locust. That was the reason he was unable to reply.

Kelly was barely conscious, for she had taken quite a blow to the back of the head when the Drone had somehow managed to sneak inside. As dazed as she was, she still had to save Blake before he lost, which seemed that way due to his legs steadily lowering and his arms bending a little more than usual. Kelly grabbed her Lancer and charged at the unsuspecting Drone who was left open to attack. She struck swiftly through its spinal cord and right through its brain, a confirmed death was certain. Blake stood in awe at what he had just witnessed. Not so long ago, Kelly was in a pool of tears and in despair, now she was saving his life.

"Hey, thanks," he said, grabbing the corpse and throwing it over the balcony. "I thought I was gonna bite the dust there."

Kelly turned away; she was crying again. Blake had ran out of comforting speeches. She was a women, of course she was going to be emotional. Abel was like a brother to her, but now he was lost.

"We've g...g...got to f...find him," she sobbed.

"We can't change the objective, Kelly," Blake said.

"I don't c...c...care about the mission any more. Command are just stuck up pricks. They don't care about us."

"Kelly, you're only saying these things because you're upset. I sort of feel the same way. Abel was a close friend. I was his first partner, remember. It may not seem like it, but I miss him almost as much as you do."

There was sudden silence that made Blake feel cold, as if Kelly was about to lash out at him. All she did, however, was give him a chilling stare. He knew now there was no turning back.

"Fine," he grinned. "Let's go get our comrade back."


End file.
